1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modulation methods, and more specifically to an OFDM channel estimation and inter-carrier interference cancellation method.
2. Description of the Related Art
The OFDM signal includes a number of independently modulated, mutually orthogonal subcarriers over which large constellation signals can be transmitted, allowing very effective use of the spectrum with high bandwidth efficiency. High data rate broadband transmissions suffer inescapably from frequency selectivity, which causes Inter Symbol Interference (ISI). A Cyclic Prefix (CP) of length greater than or equal to the channel length is appended to the OFDM symbol to absorb the ISI, but at the expense of a rate loss. The CP thus serves to decouple the OFDM symbols, resulting in a simplified, single-tap equalizer structure at the receiver. The ability of OFDM to allow high-speed data transmission over frequency selective channels with simple equalizers has led to its adoption for many conventional broadband standards, including Digital Audio and Video Broadcasting (DAB, DVB), wireless local area network (WLAN) standards (e.g., IEEE 802.11a/b/g and HIPERLAN/2) and high-speed transmission over digital subscriber line (DSL). A number of emerging broadband wireless communication standards are using or planning to use OFDM modulation, including 802.16 (WiMAX), 802.20 Mobile Wireless Broadband Access (MWBA) and other emerging cellular wireless communication systems, such as 3GPP evolution and 4G.
The orthogonality of the subcarriers of the OFDM system is of critical importance. If this orthogonality is lost, the information on one subcarrier is leaked to other adjacent subcarriers, i.e., the subcarriers are no longer decoupled. This leakage is termed as inter-carrier interference (ICI). There are three main contributing factors to ICI, namely, phase noise, frequency error, and Doppler shift. In practice, the effect of phase noise and frequency error can be minimized by proper receiver design, and thus these two factors do not amount for a large ICI component. Doppler shift appears due to the relative motion of the transmitter and receiver and is the main cause of ICI, especially in mobile wireless environments where the channel is continuously changing with time. Under such conditions, maintaining the orthogonality of OFDM subcarriers is a challenge, particularly if the time variation is large.
The interaction of the subcarriers due to ICI complicates the data detection process at the receiver, as detection can no longer be performed on a carrier-by-carrier basis. Rather, some form of equalization must be employed. The degree of time variation of the channel is directly related to the magnitude of ICI. For example, Doppler shift is an issue for the DVB-H system, which targets highly mobile users. The problem is more severe for DVB-H systems in the United States, as compared to those planned for the rest of the world. This is because, in the United States, the carrier frequency for DVB-H is between 1.67-1.675 GHz, which is roughly twice the highest frequency being considered elsewhere, meaning that the Doppler shift will be higher for the U.S. system. Also, the bandwidth of the U.S. system is 5 MHz, as opposed to the 8 MHz bandwidth of the rest of the world, so that the frequency spacing for the U.S. system will be reduced by a factor of ⅝.
In the absence of ICI (as long as the channel remains constant within one OFDM symbol), to obtain the estimate of the channel matrix H, one needs to estimate N parameters (i.e., only the diagonal of the N×N channel matrix H). On the other hand, for severe time variation, one needs to estimate all the N2 parameters (i.e., every element of H). For mild time variation, it would be sufficient to assume H to have M diagonals and estimate only MN parameters. Faster time variation requires frequent updates of channel estimate. This burdens the receiver, as the channel gains have to be periodically estimated before equalization can be performed.
A solution to the high frequency of channel estimation and the large number of parameters that need to be estimated is to send a large amount of training data, but this reduces the useful data throughput of the system. By making proper use of the a priori available information (data and channel constraints) about the system, we can reduce this training overhead. Another solution is to use Iterative methods for ICI cancellation, but these not only suffer from inherent latency, but also prove to be computationally costly.
Thus, an OFDM inter-carrier interference cancellation method solving the aforementioned problems is desired.